crystal city twilighter 5K: race report
I'll try to only say this once: Holy Mother of 8 pound 6 ounce baby Jesus, was it freakin' hot out.
I spent most of the afternoon reading in bed, drinking gallons of water and try to store up air conditioning in my blood. We headed up to the race around 7:15, and stayed in our parked, A/C-running car until about 7:40. I had frozen water in my handheld and steel in my veins.
....which means that by the time we got to the bar, I was feeling pretty happy.
We met up with Heather, who was celebrating her 24th birthday with her 24th race!
And the fabulous Liz, who came to spectate and drink beer and cheer on the slow people (moi).
The service at the bar was less-than-prompt, so by the time we left, I had the equivalent of another two beers and some pretzel nibbles in my tummy. I realized by the time we got home how much of a bad idea this was, so I sent three pieces of cookie cake in there to soak up the beers. Cookie cake, you are my hero.
Lesson of this race: my IT band isn't ready for racing, especially in this heat. By the last quarter-mile, it was sending big noisy fireworks that spelled out, "I'M DONE HERE." My knee didn't start hurting, though, so I still think I'm on the recovery road. Just not there yet.
I spent most of the afternoon reading in bed, drinking gallons of water and try to store up air conditioning in my blood. We headed up to the race around 7:15, and stayed in our parked, A/C-running car until about 7:40. I had frozen water in my handheld and steel in my veins.
I am not pretending this is a good idea.
I bumped into MCM Mama just before the air horn went off!
She looked ready to rumble.
All I wanted to do was survive, so my goal was to not burn out in the first mile. I looked down a few times and saw 8:xx on my Garmin, and reeled it in. First mile went by pretty evenly: 9:29. I walked through the water station, and dumped two cups of water on my head. FAIL: this made my left earbud stop working. Awesome. I started to feel warmer right before the second mile mark, and my IT band started pulling a bit. Hit the second mile at 19:21, and immediately stopped and stretched my IT band. I wasn't worried about the time I was losing, but I was worried about how tight it was. I stretched for probably 30-45 seconds, then kept going. Hit a water station, dumped two cups on my head. My "frozen" handheld was hot at this point, but I was dumping that on myself too. I had to stop and stretch my IT band twice more, for 15-30 seconds, during this mile. I hit the third mile at 30:23 (stupid IT band) and slogged in, for a finish of 31:16. Yes, a 4-year-old beat me and my IT band. Ugh. It wasn't until I stopped and walked that I noticed how incredibly over-heated I was.
Check out the color of my face, compared with my arm.
Also, this guy is tickling my IT band. Tease.
Awesome race partner.
We headed back to the car and changed (yup, stripped in the parking garage), and went back for our free beers. Lucky me, the poet doesn't drink beer, so I had two free ones on an empty stomach. I'm so smart.
We met up with Heather, who was celebrating her 24th birthday with her 24th race!
Lesson of this race: my IT band isn't ready for racing, especially in this heat. By the last quarter-mile, it was sending big noisy fireworks that spelled out, "I'M DONE HERE." My knee didn't start hurting, though, so I still think I'm on the recovery road. Just not there yet.